Locke

Journal of International Political Theory 11(2) (2015): 206-223.

This article considers the phenomenon of ‘state-extinction’: a situation in which a state faces a very real and imminent threat of literal disappearance from the surface of the Earth. By looking at the case of sinking small island states, this article explores the role and meaning of territory to statehood, while advancing the idea that rather than as a claim-right to territory, the situation of sinking island states should be understood through a state-right to exist as a state – an internationally recognised political authority – in the system of states. If and when this is the case, states under the threat of physical state-extinction may have claims towards international community to continuing existence as political entities without necessarily having a right to new territory.

When evaluating Locke’s primary and secondary qualities, it is essential to differentiate them to truly understand what Locke is describing. Even when these qualities are understood, however, there are those who believe Locke is incorrect. George Berkeley believes primary and secondary qualities only exist in viewers’ minds, and when rebutting his argument one must give these qualities a location in the real world. When this is done, Locke’s distinction is defended.

'Promising and Obligation' criticizes the view, defended by Joseph Raz, John Finnis, David Owens and many others, that one's moral obligation to keep a promise is created by one's expression, through the act of promising, of an intention so to obligate oneself.

The moral obligation to keep promises arises instead out of either of two contrasting aspects of the morality of human nature: from our mutual moral independence, which consists in our natural right to determine for ourselves what we do for others; or from our mutual moral interdependence, which consists in our natural interest in the trustworthiness of others.

The paper opposes David Hume's theory that the moral obligation to keep promises is part of convention-dependent or artificial morality.  Instead the obligation is part of pre-conventional natural morality.

Cet ouvrage se donne pour tâche d’examiner les discours les plus emblématiques produits par la philosophie moderne au sujet de la peine de mort. Assumant d’emblée le point de vue abolitionniste, notre intention n’est nullement de « peser le pour et le contre », mais de poser la question suivante : dans quelle mesure est-il possible de fonder rationnellement le refus catégorique de la peine capitale ? À cet égard, le détour par l’histoire de la philosophie nous montre à quel point la raison est avant tout divisée contre elle-même. En effet, au terme d'un travail visant à mettre à l’épreuve la cohérence interne des partisans de la peine de mort (Locke, Kant, Stuart Mill), ainsi que de ses adversaires (Beccaria, Bentham), il nous est apparu impossible de conclure à un simple défaut de rationalité de la part des uns ou des autres. Ce que l'on constate au contraire, c'est que chaque démonstration se déploie à partir d'un certain nombre de principes éthiques indémontrables. Bien plus, chaque grand courant de la philosophie pénale est susceptible de donner lieu à des prises de position radicalement opposées. Mais pour peu que l'on se refuse à concevoir un abîme insurmontable entre la raison d'une part, et la sensibilité d'autre part, la philosophie morale peut bénéficier d'une approche dans laquelle le raisonnement et « le cœur » se complètent, au lieu de constituer une alternative. À cet égard, c'est dans l'œuvre de Jean-Jacques Rousseau qu’il nous a semblé possible de repérer les éléments permettant de fonder au mieux l’abolition.

Locke endorses a distinction between passive reflection and voluntary attentive reflection, which he occasionally labels contemplation. Failure to recognize this distinction properly has had an effect on interpretations of Locke’s theory of reflection, and caused puzzlement about the relation between reflection and consciousness. In particular, the function of reflection as a passive internal sense that produces simple ideas of mental operations has been downplayed in favour of the view that reflection in one manner or another involves attention and/or presupposes consciousness of mental operations. This has led a number of scholars to maintain, implicitly or explicitly, that Locke in fact abandons either his doctrine of sensation and reflection as the two exclusive sources of ideas or his doctrine of ideas as the only immediate objects of experience.

With the help of a distinction between reflection as a source of ideas and reflection as an operation about ideas I aim to show how Locke can hold to his empiricist maxim about the two sources of ideas and also endorse ideas as the only immediate objects of experience. A proper understanding of Locke’s theory of reflection requires that reflection and consciousness be delineated with respect to one another. I will show how Locke’s notion of consciousness differs from both types of reflection.

No  presente  trabalho  será  analisada  uma  das  principais  questões  metafísicas encontradas nas obras de Voltaire, a saber: a questão da alma, que encontramos em certos
textos literários e em tratados filosóficos do autor, como por exemplo,  Micrômegas ou Uma História Filosófica, Tratado de Metafísica e O Filósofo Ignorante. Analisando estes textos,
podemos reduzir toda a problemática em quatro questões fundamentais, a saber; 1) a alma se existe, existe apenas no homem ou em todos os animais? 2) A alma pode ser material? 3) Se a essência da alma for pensar, penso sempre? 4) A alma pode ser imort al? No entanto, nas questões 1 e 3, será de grande importância uma análise mais detida da relação entre a
argumentação  voltariana  com  certas  idéias  de  Descartes  e  Locke,  como  por  exemplo,  a identificação entre idéias e percepções feita por Locke em seu  Ensaio Sobre o entendimento Humano, e o conceito de animal máquina que Descartes nos mostra, entre outros textos, nas Meditações.  Tentaremos,  portanto,  nos  focar  mais  nestas  duas  questões,  apresentando  as idéias  de  Descarte  e  Locke  juntamente  com  a  leitura  qu e  Voltaire  fez  delas  e,
consequentemente, algumas objeções apresentadas por este último contra estas teorias.

How do philosophical accusations of talking nonsense relate to the layperson’s notions of meaning and meaningfulness?  If one were to explain carefully what philosophical nonsense was supposed to be, would one be greeted with incredulity?  How do people react to being accused to talking nonsense themselves?  Is anything analogous to an illusion of meaning recognised in everyday life?  In dream-reports perhaps?  Or in the utterances of schizophrenics or those under the influence of drugs?  Or in certain jokes and hoaxes?  Are contradictions felt to be meaningless?  I argue that, though it is clear that experimental philosophy could shed some light on these questions, their subject matter creates special difficulties.  First, it is more difficult than usual to formulate questions and produce ‘vignettes’ that do not subtly encourage certain responses at the expense of others.  Second, the fact that philosophical nonsense is a metaphilosophical concept ensures that its investigation is going to be more indirect than would be that of knowledge or intention, for example.

It is widely believed that the philosophical concept of ‘tabula rasa’ originates with Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding and refers to a state in which a child is as formless as a blank slate. Given that both these beliefs are entirely false, this article will examine why they have endured from the eighteenth century to the present. Attending to the history of philosophy, psychology, psychiatry and feminist scholarship it will be shown how the image of the tabula rasa has been used to signify an originary state of formlessness, against which discourses on the true nature of the human being can differentiate their position. The tabula rasa has operated less as a substantive position than as a whipping post. However, it will be noted that innovations in psychological theory over the past decade have begun to undermine such narratives by rendering unintelligible the idea of an ‘originary’ state of human nature.

Locke's concept of rights influenced the Framers of the Constitution, which has increased the stakes in later interpretation of what Locke’s model of rights entailed. “Lockean rights” now suggests a perfect right unlimitable by the state in the public interest. Such a right is theoretically interesting, but it is not what Locke had in mind, and it was not the model of rights Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, and other inherited from Locke's Second Treatise.

This paper was an initial reconstruction of Locke's model of a right, locating it within the legal culture of his time and place. His model of what a right is, in itself, was not controversial then (as the perfect and unlimitable right would have been). It was an interest that could be asserted against a party who harmed it unreasonably, but it remained subject to reasonable limitations in its own use. Thus Locke did not propound a model of rights beyond reasonable limits by law.

In this paper the author presents and philosophically analyses how, respectively, Spinoza in the TTP, Bayle in the Commentaire philosophique, and Locke in the Epistola de tolerantia and other texts, conceive of the possible metaphysical reasons for religious toleration. The comparison will show that although all three authors argue for toleration in religious matters, they do this on essentially different metaphysical bases so the apparent resemblance between their theories is limited to the 'surface.'

In The Trouble with Terror, Tamar Meisels argues that liberal democracies should adopt a Hobbesean standpoint on the relationship of liberty to security where dire emergencies (e.g., violent terrorism) are concerned, and a Lockean one on such normal security problems as violent crime. A key premise in her argument is the claim—which she attributes to both Thomas Hobbes and John Locke—that security is a necessary condition for liberty; and, from thence, she infers that security always has priority over liberty. My paper contests, first, that the classical contractualists do not and cannot take this view; and, second, that, if they did, their positions (and, therefore, Meisels’ own) would be seriously confused.

Comparative Analysis of John Locke's Second Trestise of Government and Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince and Discourses of the Livy.
Author: Angel Versetti

"A wise ruler should nip any rebellion in the bud, claims Machiavelli’s Prince. Yet people have a right to rebel even against the shadow of tyranny, according to Locke’s Second Treatise. These two notions might suggest eternal confrontation between the oppressive ruler and rebellious citizenry, paranoid and suspicious of each other’s schemes. This is where the moderating approach from Machiavelli’s Discourses comes in: rebellion is a nuisance, but since the ruler needs the power of people to assist him in his quest for glory, let them rant and mob a bit.""

En este artículo hago una primera aproximación al interés lockeano por la religión, plasmado en su obra The Reasonableness of Christianity. Sus estudios sobre la Biblia y sobre algunos dogmas cristianos, como el de la Trinidad, influyeron decisivamente en los movimientos heterodoxos de la época, sobre todo en el llamado deísmo del siglo XVII, cuyas ideas y posturas trascendieron al siglo XVIII con los librepensadores. En dicho
siglo el deísmo, para entonces también llamado librepensamiento, fue cuestionado y criticado por muchos filósofos, dentro de los cuales destaca George Berkeley, quien vio en las ideas de esos grupos el germen de la decadencia social. Berkeley y su obra Alcifrón son abordados en la segunda parte del artículo, en donde se retoma su crítica al librepensamiento, la cual ejemplifica la influencia de Locke en los movimientos deístas y librepensadores de épocas posteriores.

This short essay is an exploration and a comparison of the conceptions of John Locke and G.W. Leibniz on innate ideas. Their arguments for their positions are compared, as are their likely motivations are compared and evaluated. A short attempt is also made to recommend my own thoughts at the end.

Beginning in the 1600s, European philosophers started debating the question of who ought to govern a nation. As the absolute rule of kings declined, Enlightenment philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke advocated different forms of government. While in Leviathan, Hobbes favors philosophical absolutism, Locke bases his arguments in Two Treatises of Government on both philosophical and biblical constitutionalism.

40 essays by Ronnie Hsia, Ulrich Leinsle, Marius Reiser, Thomas Marschler, Trent Pomplun, Jean-Louis Quantin, William O'Brien SJ, Stefania Tutino, Carl Trueman, Andreas Beck, Willem van Asselt, Eric Carlsson, Stephen Hampton, Benjamin Mayes, Robert Kolb, Risto Saarinnen, Ola Tjorholm, Sarah Mortimer, Jeff Bach, Keith Stanglin, Hartmut Lehmann, Jonathan Strom, Craig Atwood, Stephen Burnett, Emanuele Colombo, Aza Goudriaan, Carolina Armenteros, Eric Watkins, Maria Rosa Antognazza, Stephen Gaukroger, Jonathan Israel, John Henry.

El Dos de Mayo de 1808 los dos alcaldes ordinarios de Móstoles,
Andrés Torrejón y Simón Hernández, firmaron un bando o proclama que
llamaba al levantamiento contra los soldados franceses que el emperador
Napoleón había ido introduciendo en España en virtud del Tratado de
Fontainebleau. La misiva fue ideada y redactada por Juan Pérez Villamil,
un alto cargo de la Corte que se hallaba descansando accidentalmente
aquí. Pedro Serrano llevó el parte por la carrera Real de Extremadura
hasta Badajoz y este se difundió por el cuadrante suroccidental de
España. El hecho, sencillo, tuvo repercusión en el inicio de la Guerra
de la Independencia y ha originado un mito, casi un David vs Goliat,
convertido hoy en la principal seña de identidad histórica de Móstoles.
En este estudio, el más completo jamás realizado sobre la gesta, se
desgranan con gran rigor los pormenores de la confección del célebre
bando en esta villa situada a tres leguas de Madrid, revelando por fin
la intriga palaciega que llevó a su firma por unos humildes alcaldes, y
sus consecuencias: el alcance real que tuvo en las alteraciones populares
que condujeron al estallido bélico, y la erección del mito del Alcalde de
Móstoles, que fue utilizado con diferentes intenciones políticas y que
olvidó los méritos de los responsables de la proclama para centrar el
protagonismo en uno de ellos, Andrés Torrejón.
Esta obra se divide en dos partes: hasta la página 161 explicamos los antecedentes y el contexto histórico, los hechos del Dos de Mayo de 1808 en Madrid y en Móstoles, la repercusión inmediata del Bando de los Alcaldes, el mito erigido en torno a la figura del Alcalde de Móstoles y añadimos las biografías de los principales personajes implicados en esta historia. El resto de la obra son anexos documentales que amplían información y adjuntan las innumerables fuentes históricas que sustentan la investigación.
AL EDITARSE POR FIN EL LIBRO EN PAPEL, OPTAMOS POR PUBLICAR UN FRAGMENTO DE LA EDICION DEFINITIVA
Puedes adquirir el libro completo en formato EPUB:
https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0C62KN1MP
o en formato papel en tapa blanda:
https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0C6BX7Y19

It is often thought that consciousness has a qualitative dimension that cannot be tracked by science. Recently, however, some philosophers have argued that this worry stems not from an elusive feature of the mind, but from the special nature of the concepts used to describe conscious states. Marc Champagne draws on the neglected branch of philosophy of signs or semiotics to develop a new take on this strategy. 

The term “semiotics” was introduced by John Locke in the modern period – its etymology is ancient Greek, and its theoretical underpinnings are medieval. Charles Sanders Peirce made major advances in semiotics, so he can act as a pipeline for these forgotten ideas. Most philosophers know Peirce as the founder of American pragmatism, but few know that he also coined the term “qualia,” which is meant to capture the intrinsic feel of an experience. Since pragmatic verification and qualia are now seen as conflicting commitments, Champagne endeavors to understand how Peirce could (or thought he could) have it both ways. The key, he suggests, is to understand how humans can insert distinctions between features that are always bound.

Recent attempts to take qualities seriously have resulted in versions of panpsychism, but Champagne outlines a more plausible way to achieve this. So, while semiotics has until now been the least known branch of philosophy ending in –ics, his book shows how a better understanding of that branch can move one of the liveliest debates in philosophy forward.

The present article compares John Locke’s and John Owen’s approaches to toleration. Owen, a towering figure of the Puritan revolution and a Protestant scholastic whose work is still the object of significant appreciation in Reformed circles, was Locke’s dean during his time as a student in Oxford. There is a number of treatises on toleration by Owen, especially during the mid-1640s, and later again after the Restoration, in his role as a nonconforming divine. There has also been some speculation regarding the involvement of both Owen and Locke in the circle around Shaftesbury. Together with their writings against Parker and Stillingfleet, this would seem to draw Owen and Locke quite close to each other. Both authors are, however, divided in their approach to Christian doctrine: Owen represents classical confessionalism and Locke modern doctrinal minimalism. The article explores the ways in which these oppositional approaches to doctrine relate to their views of toleration.

Hume’s theory of personal identity is developed in response to Locke’s account of personal identity. Yet it is striking that Hume does not emphasize Locke’s distinction between persons and human beings. It seems even more striking that Hume’s account of the self in Books 2 and 3 of the Treatise has less scope for distinguishing persons from human beings than his account in Book 1. This is puzzling, because Locke originally introduced the distinction in order to answer questions of moral accountability and Hume’s discussion of the self in Book 2 provides the foundation of his moral theory in Book 3. In response to the puzzle I show that Locke and Hume hold different moral and religious views and these differences are important to explain why their theories of personal identity differ.

Abstract: The author seeks to show at least two theses. (1) That the statement of the title is compatible with the development of a theoretic and critical reason, centered on various discussions of problems. (2) That the same statement has a double sense: or it’s trivial (as Locke applied this term), or it can be understood like a transcendental proposition, since it establishes a synthetic condition for all possible philosophical activity, although it’s an insufficient condition.

Resulta difícil escapar al hecho de que la mayor parte de los principales exponentes de la escuela de los sentimientos morales se cuenten también entre los fundadores de la estética como disciplina independiente. Tal conexión se hace aún más evidente puestos a considerar sus obras: En “Los Moralistas”, Shaftesbury sostendrá su noción de bien firmemente sobre su noción de lo bello. Hutcheson hará en 1725 una primera exposición de su pensamiento a través de “Investigación Sobre El Origen De Nuestras Ideas De Belleza Y Virtud”, y Hume utilizará liberalmente conceptos del campo estético en sus reflexiones éticas y viceversa.
La relación entre ambas esferas de investigación encuentra en ellos su punto más firme de intersección en el concepto de “gusto” como sentido interno responsable del discernimiento de la virtud y la belleza, el cual será su aporte principal a la disciplina naciente a la vez que servirá de base de justificación y modelo para su idea del sentido moral. Uno de los objetos de este trabajo será dar apoyo a la idea de una continuidad  entre ambos sentimientos.

Although its origins stem from theological debates, the general will would ultimately become one of the most celebrated and denigrated concepts emerging from early modern political thought.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau would make it the central element of his political theory, and it would take on a life of its own during the French Revolution before being subjected to generations of embrace or opprobrium.  James Farr and David Lay Williams have collected for the first time a set of essays that track the evolving history of the general will from its origins to recent times.  These essays include attention to the general will’s theological, political, formal, and substantive dimensions with a careful eye to the concept’s virtues and limitations as understood by its expositors and critics, among them Pascal, Malebranche, Locke, Spinoza, Montesquieu, Constant, Tocqueville, Adam Smith, and John Rawls.

Locke’un bilgi/algı felsefesinin iki temel dayanağı; “soyut ideler” kavramı ve “birincil-ikincil nitelikler” ayrımıdır. Berkeley kendi felsefesine öncelikle Locke’un bu iki düşüncesini eleştirmekle başlar. Ona göre ne soyut ideler diye bir şey vardır, ne de birincil ve ikincil nitelikler ayrımı anlamlıdır. Ona göre tutarlı bir deneyciliğin bu türden düşünceleri kabul etmesi mümkün değildir. Berkeley’nin bu eleştirileri daha sonra “madde” kavramına yönelteceği eleştirinin de temelini oluşturacaktır.

This paper provides an entrance into central discussions regarding Kant’s account of property. The first section shows how Kant engages and transforms important, related proposals from Hobbes and Locke as well as how the ‘libertarian’ and ‘liberal republican’ interpretive traditions differ in their readings on these points. Since Kantian theories for a long time didn’t focus on Kant’s Doctrine of Right but instead followed Rawls’s lead by developing Kantian theories grounded on Kant’s (meta-) ethical writings, the second section focuses on property discussions found in the Rawlsian tradition. The final section shows how important contemporary work in the Kantian tradition goes beyond Rawlsian, libertarian, and liberal republican concerns of distributive justice among free and equal citizens, to include questions central to, for example, the philosophy of care, feminist philosophy, philosophy of race, philosophy of sex and love, and environmental philosophy.

John Locke is famous for popularizing the method of the philosophical thought experiment in discussions of personal identity; the cases introduced in the second edition of An Essay Concerning Understanding (1694) are still employed by contemporary philosophers. Here I argue that Locke's method was nonetheless importantly different from later efforts in ways that can help us better appreciate his larger projects. Rather than pumping the reader's intuitions in support of his preferred account, Locke's thought experiments serve to illustrate common errors in assessments of identity that were particularly prevalent and problematic. Locke defends his idea of 'person' otherwise, through what I call his 'lived experiments:' observations of about linguistic usage that serve to illustrate the term's role in moral reasoning. I focus especially on Locke's example of the forensic status of the madman. Examples like these do not, for Locke, demonstrate the intuitiveness of his analysis, but rather bolster his case that it is the right analysis, given his broader commitments. They serve to illustrate how Locke's preferred criterion for the identity of persons – sameness of consciousness – contributes to a demonstrative science of morality, while the rival account – sameness of substance – falls short.

In this paper I argue that understanding John Locke’s account of personal identity in the context of the metaphysical and religious debates of his day, especially the debates concerning the possibility of the afterlife and the resurrection, reveals the strengths of his theory. I follow Locke in classifying the views of his predecessors into material, Cartesian and non-Cartesian immaterial views of the soul, and views, according to which human beings are mind-body unions. I identify metaphysical problems for each view respectively and argue that the strength of Locke’s account of personal identity is not only that it provides a response to the various problems that arise for the views of his predecessors, but also that he offers a theory that does not require him to prove their views to be mistaken and is thereby consistent with their mutually exclusive views.

Political philosophers often employ figures of speech such as metaphors, similes, hyperbole, and parallelism in order to add some sort of a literary or rhetorical quality to their writings and also to help the reader understand their political philosophies. For instance, even though warning against using metaphor for the possibility that it might be deceptive (Hobbes 4:102-3), Thomas Hobbes contradicts himself, perhaps due to the nature and power of metaphor, and uses the “Leviathan” for illustrative purposes for his case. In his book Two Treatise of Government, John Locke, similar Hobbes, builds his case on rational arguments and utilizes metaphors and parallelism (such as “mixing labor,” “body politic,” and “appealing to heaven”) only for illustrative purposes, to give rhetorical power to arguments that are not, in their definitive formulations, based upon metaphor. In his explanation of philosophies, Locke’s use of figures of speech makes his case more philosophical and illustrative with real life examples, whereas Hobbes’ use appears more political and hypothetical.